In which English Towers suffers a stinky situation
Following on nicely, then, from all our chat about self sufficiency/knitting your own yoghurt/composting toilets, etc, I think I’ve mentioned before that here at English Towers we’re a teeny, tiny bit eco-friendly. Firstly we’ve got those very thick, specially insulated walls that mean you can forget trying to hang a picture, because one tap with the hammer sees you elbow deep in your plasterboard, however it does make it incredibly warm upstairs, which flows nicely downstairs and saves on the costs of the heating system, which, coincidentally, runs separately upstairs to down. Good eh?
Secondly, and yes, I’m getting to the point now, we have one of those ‘bio-flow’ systems for our..er…waste. Here’s the rub, as understood by my peanut-sized brain, and with no technical terms thrown in: the toilets and sinks are linked up to a drainage system which take all our household ick to a big green tank which is buried in the garden. Here, a small constantly running motor injects a supply of air into the ick which bubbles through, aerates the ick and encourages bacteria to break it down to a liquid which is then fed into the garden by a system of tentacles planted all under the lawn, where it harmlessly, odourlessly seeps away. This system doesn’t create any harmful gases (apparently – they haven’t met my children) and leaves a very small amount of ‘sludge’ which collects in the bottom and only needs ‘de-sludging’ (I know, it’s a fantastic phrase) every 5 years. Here it is with the lid off (and yes, I took the photo from inside – it was very bloody smelly):
Trouble is, ours broke. We noticed first of all that weird things were happening: if you flushed a toilet, water bubbled up in the shower. We got worried. And then we looked outside in the drains and we were even more worried:
Hubby: ‘oh look, there’s one of yours’
Me: ‘I think you’ll find that’s not mine’
Hubby: ‘oh right of course not, yours don’t smell, do they’
Me: ‘nope. And mine are pink and sparkly’
Cue several days’ worth of quality poo jokes and lots of worried conversations with the water treatment company. Turns out, when we finally got the bloody lid off, that the air hose had popped off and had been happily aerating half of Cavan instead of our poo for the last goodness knows how long. One look into the main tank and we knew we had one giant, stinky problem. The system had completely broken down and we needed help fast.
Long story short, then, we had to had to be ‘de-sludged’ and have our pipes cleaned before the whole process was ever going to start working again. To add insult to injury it turns out that our gates aren’t wide enough to allow one man, his tractor and his de-sludging equipment through, so we had to do a bit of long-distance desludging, which doesn’t exactly help matters.
The whole thing cost a packet and was extremely stinky. See what happens when you try and go eco-friendly? Next up is a visit from the bio-flow company who are, unfortunately, based in Cork.
And no, sadly, this was no April Fool’s joke. Still, as I pointed out to Hubby, we may be cash poor, but we’re poo rich.
We’ve the same jobby (no pun intended) here ‘cept Mr. Grufferty, local Farmer guy Extraordinaire desludges for us once a year. In return, he can sow what he likes in the Da-In-Laws unused field.
Uncoupling pipes notwithstanding, how about initiating a buns-for-sludge barter agreement with your local slurry-tank-owning Mr. Grufferty? He gets pink and sparkly buns, you get your pink and sparklies removed! Ta-dah!!
See, I like the reed bed solution personally, but that’s not always feasible.
The best story I ever heard was someone’s septic tank getting banjaxed by over enthusiastic use of bleach in the bog. Solution? Chuck a chicken that’s been left on the sun for a day and a half in there to get the bacterial population back in order again.
Pink and sparkly? I’d get that looked at if I were you.
Growup: Y’see that’s funny, because someone else told us we weren’t supposed to use bleach either. I want to know what he does with the sludge afterwards. Or actually, maybe I don’t…
Soooooooooooooooo funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH’s parents have a septic tank in their garden in France – took them ages to find an eco-friendly bleach she could use.
Is the sludge what they use when they are muck spreading on a nice sunny day?
TM: I wondered that. Me and Hubby had hours of entertainment imagining him muckspreading the contents of ours across the fields. I’ll spare you the details
i did a mighty fine rant about not being a country girl that day i can tell you, all whilst holding my nose and stamping my feet.
i’m intrigued by the chicken thing . . yikes
what a total pain this must have been, poo(r) you!!!
tee hee
Rach: What a coincidence! I know, I’m pooped after all that excitement *snigger*
Towny: Your wish is my command. As long as you don’t stop reading. Ah, I feel all pink and fuzzy inside now. Uh oh
Brighid: Ooh a pooey bar – there’s something very wrong there. Although I suppose people can tell crappy jokes there. Hee!
Although of course ours smelt very fragrant
Moon: I nearly said ‘where’s Moon when you need him’ and like a little magic pixie, you pop straight up!
**decides to answer the question**
Well, it look like a normal toilet. Please realise: When you open the lid you don’t see poo!! When you sit down a flap moves back and you have free access to the poo bucket. So just sit there and do your thing. Poo in the back bit, pee in the front. Most people are build like that anyway, so problems there. Pee is being transported out of the house (to where-ever you want) via a tube. Poo obviously stays in bucket. When bucket is full you close it, take it outside (trying not to fall down the stairs for obvious reasons), open it again (when outside the house), put some muck in including worms and leave it stand with lid on for as long as possible (til the second bucket is full). Usually 2 months or more.
Then when worms have done their job, dig a big hole in the forest, open bucket and f*ck “compost” into the hole. Done.
See there is a reason why I’m in tourism and not in sales. You want to be quite dedicated to start this now. I didn’t have a choice as boyfriend already had composting toilet when he met me.
Still want to come over and visit some day? I’ll try to have an full bucket so you can practise.
Jenn: I wondered that!
That’s the LAST Goddamn time I eat chocolate mousse while reading your blog, Missus. XP
(barf)
@EM: It’s an experience, that’s all I can say.
It does sound deeply stinky and ‘orrible all round, missus. Has the air cleared a bit?
On the other hand, eating veg manured with one’s own … um … manure … might have put me off broccoli for life.
Pink and sparkly notwithstanding. LOL!
Moon: It has to be done. I think we’ve run out of poo related material now though
Anouk: I’d love to know more about it. You should start a blog – I know I’d read it!!
Wee One: Air all cleared, thank youkind of makes you appreciate mains drainage a bit more doesn’t it!
Jay: Exactly! Apparently there are some farmers round here who will clean out your tank and then use the stuff to spray on their fields. EW!!!!!